


Art For Art's Sake

by LiaS0



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hannibal is sometimes a cannibal, Hannibal is sometimes not a cannibal, LiaS0 Soulmate World, M/M, One Shot Collection, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Will Graham hates soulmates, Will Graham is a soulmate tease
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2018-10-24 14:07:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10743237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiaS0/pseuds/LiaS0
Summary: Art for Art's Sake: The concept of a work of art created simply for the enjoyment and expression of the artist, holding no other meaning but to consume and enjoyA series of one-shots within the soulmate AU world build of 'The Fault in My Code' and 'Where the Wicked Walk'Chapter 2: Will Graham had just finished dragging the body of Randall Tier up a small hill to an abandoned well when he saw another gentleman just across the way doing something much the same.“Well, one of us is going to have to change,” Will said dryly.





	1. Art For Art's Sake

Art For Art's Sake:

            “This guy is hitting every two weeks, body gone by Thursday and returned by Saturday morning to bed.”

            “I’m aware of the timeline, Jack.”

            “It’s Tuesday, and I’ve got _my_ director breathing down my neck to do a press release.”

            “I can’t pull a killer out of midair like some god damn magician,” says Will, and he moves to the side to let someone pass. He hates crowds, hates the sharing of skin and clothing in such close proximities, but the Starbucks down the way tasted like burnt beans and he’d had enough of the BAU’s habit of forgetting to change out the coffee grounds on a particularly hairy case. He’d needed a break, needed some space to get a drink and unwind his muscles for a moment. He’d miscalculated the time, though; it was peak lunch hour for business, which meant every coffee place was packed with the business class fighting for their caffeine rush to get them through the two P.M. lull.

            At his mention of killers, a girl in line gives him an uncomfortable glance that he ignores. Two solid green eyes; not worth the risk if they accidentally meet.

            “No, but here’s what I’m thinking: we’re at the ready. We can’t get you in first, but we can try and keep as many out as possible; keep it fresh. As fresh as we can. You go in, you take as much time as you need, and we get what we can from it. Try and get a head start on the next one.”

            “Jesus, Jack,” Will murmurs, planting his feet when he gets jostled again. The air smells like fresh ground coffee beans, syrup, and the beginning tendrils of a burnt bagel.

            “I’m just-”

            “You’re just trying to get me hyped, maybe give me a jolt to see something I’m not seeing. Trying to remind me of what happens, we don’t get something. You don’t have to remind me what I’ll be walking into; I’d say I know better than some. Maybe most.”

            He blinks away images like photographs in his mind’s eye, snapshots of bodies ravaged, ruined. He moves the phone from one ear to the other, takes another step closer to the register.

            “I’m just trying to prepare you, that’s all,” Jack replies.

            “If we get a print back, that’s one step closer to grabbing the bastard.”

            Someone glances back at him, and he focuses on the frame of the glasses perched precariously on his nose rather than risk meeting their eyes. Their nose is wrinkled in distaste at his language, words of disgruntled disapproval fat and heavy on their bottom lip. They ultimately say nothing, though. Be it his stance, his grave expression, or the turn of his shoulders that urges people to just _look_ away; they turn around and leave him to Jack’s reassurances that Will would be able to complete the profile.

            The line moves, and he disconnects from the call, tucking his hands into his pockets. At the front, he watches his glasses and orders a chai latte, a small luxury but a luxury none-the-less. Smoother than coffee and arguably healthier, although Will Graham wouldn’t let that determine whether or not he’d consume the drink. Mostly, he had a closet sweet tooth.

            “Do you want to donate to the Lost Soulmate Fund?” the barista asks. It’s a rehearsed question, and her matching eyes and flat tone give him all that he needs to know about her opinion on the fund.

            “No, thank you.”

            He’s jostled as he waits for the cup, jostled as he sprinkles a small dusting of hazelnut on the foam, and by the time he’s making his way to the door he’s about fed up with everyone in their entirety. He needs a walk –reasons a walk will maybe clear his head until there’s nothing but the killer inside. Maybe if the killer’s there, they’ll find him in the real world before he can hurt anyone again.

            He’s jostled once more at the door, and as he turns to the side to avoid someone, the door opens and smashes right into his cup, spilling its contents down his shirt.

            “Fuck,” he hisses, hand shaking furiously as scalding tea hits it. He’s aware of too much: eyes, stares, whispers, noises of concern, hands reaching for napkins. A mild quiet as the baristas behind the counter watch the mess being made before their eyes, unable to fight through the crowd to clean it. The front of his shirt is soaked, burning hot on his skin, and he accepts a handful of napkins from a random stranger’s hand and smacks dismally at his chest.

            “My apologies, I didn’t see you there,” a man says, but Will isn’t looking at him. He manages a nod, scoops up the cup from the grimy floor and skirts around him to leave, his neck uncomfortably hot at the stares, skin on his chest even moreso from the burns.

            “It’s fine,” he manages, and his feet are hitting concrete. A bad idea to be in public, what with the tasteless thoughts in his head. A bad idea to be at a coffee shop. A bad idea to interact.

            “If I may,” the same voice says, and Will is stopped from a clean getaway by an odd tweed suit and an argyle tie blocking his path.

            “It’s fine,” he repeats uncomfortably.

            “I’ve spilt your drink and stained your clothes; allow me to at least get you a new cup.”

            A cursory glance gives him minute details of a clean-shaven face, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. A second glance reveals neatly combed hair, broad shoulders, and a sharp jawline. Matching eyes.

            “It’s not the first time I’ve spilled something on this shirt,” Will says, and the man allows a short laugh.

            “Be that as it may, you didn’t wait in line just to carry an empty cup and first degree burns.”

            Maybe it’s because he’s been really looking forward to the hazelnut on top, but Will manages to agree. He waits outside of the madhouse though, just because. He dabs at the stain spreading as his shirt greedily soaks up the liquid, although it’s more to have something to do with his hands than anything else. Will has always needed something to do with his hands.

            The man emerges from the coffee shop faster than Will imagined, and he accepts the new cup, tucking it into the old and empty one.

            “Thank you.”

            “How is your hand?”

            “My hand?” Will blinks, then remembers he’d burnt himself. He looks at it, sticky and pink, and he shrugs. “It’s fine.”

            There’s a pause, a faint lull as the man tries to catch his eye, and it occurs to Will, not for the first time, that he’s utterly impossible in situations like this, which is why he generally doesn’t work with many people if he can help it. He’s better off sequestered away with his profiles and his guest lectures where he’s talking _at_ people, not with them. Usually they give him a solid barrier, too, a podium to fend them off if they get too close.

            “I’m Dr. Lecter,” the man says, and he holds his hand out.

            “Dr. Graham,” he replies, and he awkwardly wipes his hand before going to shake Lecter’s.

            Rather than shake his hand, though, Dr. Lecter surprises him by turning his hand and inspecting it for anything more than a mere burn. The shock is just enough that Will actually _looks_ at him rather than the suggestion of him from around the rim of his glasses, and when their eyes meet his skin goes clammy.

            “It does look superficial,” Dr. Lecter says, letting go of his hand. His gaze is steady, searching, and Will quickly looks away from him, cramming his hand into his pocket as his eyelashes flutter, his breath stutters.

            He’d seen someone’s eyes. Will Graham tended to be rather good at avoiding eyes. Out of eyes to accidentally see, a small whisper reasons that they were a rather lovely shade of maroon. Another panicked whisper says he’d better get his contact information, just in case.

            “It’s fine,” he says again, and maybe he’s just doomed to parrot his words for the rest of the day. He clears his throat, glances to the sidewalk to count the cracks. “Thank you, Dr. Lecter, but I must be going.”

            “Off to change your shirt, I’d presume?”

            Will starts to say _no_ , that he’d just lurk about FBI headquarters with a stained shirt for all he cares, but he stops himself. Most people would care enough to change their shirt. “Uh, yes. Then work.”

            “Are you quite sure you’re alright, Dr. Graham? You look flushed.”

            “That’s just my complexion,” he replies distractedly, and he’s down the sidewalk before Dr. Lecter can say anything else, let alone point out that one’s complexion doesn’t just change so quickly and drastically naturally unless something is very wrong. “Nice meeting you,” he manages to toss back as he goes.

            Back at HQ, he splashes water on his face, cools himself off. It was fine. He’d seen someone’s eyes, but it was _fine_. It’s not the first eyes you see, but a random pair of eyes, and he’d gone quite some time since the last scare. As water drips from his eyelashes, he takes slow, calming breaths and manages to convince himself that he’s not going to change. His eyes will remain the same. It was just a random coincidence, Dr. Lecter or whatever his name was, smashing into him.

            At least, he reasons much later, face dry and shirt stained, he got his chai.

-

            When he wakes, his actions are automatic, unconscious. His shirt isn’t fully buttoned as he leaves the hotel room, and he’s struggling to tie a knot in his shoe laces on the elevator. Something inside of him is whispering, urging, and he’s just sleep-deprived enough that he isn’t questioning it. Sometimes, a killer gets in so close that he wonders if he’s mirroring their actions, same things in a different place, and maybe that’s what this is. It’s an itch he can’t reach, and he’s too tired to try and figure out –he can only act.

            He doesn’t know where he’s walking, only that he must walk. The early morning air is cool on his cheeks, wet after light showers off and on in the night, and small buffets of air curl and puff in clouds about his lips. He’s wandering, uncertain, then stops. The urge is an odd thing, a thrum of energy that travels down his spine, then back up.

            Something tugs at him, whispering. _Go, go,_ it says, and he takes another step, then another. At a crosswalk, he instinctively crosses, although he can’t say why. Maybe he is really losing it; maybe this was just enough to push him over, and _God_ what was Jack Crawford going to say about that?

            It occurs to him that he can’t be losing it if he realizes he’s losing it, but that’s no comfort.

            He finds his way to a park, one he’s often visited when he needs to walk about and clear the spaces of his brain, fill it with something nice. The wet grass makes his steps slick, and he slips a few times before he makes it to the paved walkway, looking around. Searching. For what?

 _What am I searching for_?

            The park is deserted, and he wanders it, aimless, seconds ticking faintly on the watch on his wrist, reminding him of lost sleep. He turns to continue walking, to continue searching for something, _something_. When he sees it, he stops.

            Just across a small bridge, someone stands, staring. At the distance, he isn’t sure how he knows the person is looking at him, but looking at him they are. At the recognition, they take a step towards him, and suddenly he’s walking, a lurch to his gait that tells him to hurry, _hurry_ , and he’s got a little bit of a scuff to his step as he picks up his pace and all but collides into the poor bastard with a tight embrace on the center of the bridge.

            It feels _right_.

            Arms wrap tight around him, securing him in place as he’s buffeted with the sensation of endorphins being released, humming with a pleasure in his veins, in every heartbeat. Without thought, without question, lips seek his and claim them, and he’s drowning, pleasure hot in his stomach and tingling along his palms. It is not so much a question of whether or not he _wants_ to be kissed, but if he’s even in the right place to question it.

            Quite simply, he’s not.

            His mouth is soft, yielding under Will’s curious hunger. Palms pass along his sides, his back, his shoulders, and he inhales the scent of a luxuriously calming cologne, something smacking of bergamot and cedar. It’s dizzying in his mind, and he closes his eyes tight, lips moving with an urgency for the whispers under his skin that’s begging him to just _touch_.

            They break for air; a gasping breath wheezes from him, and it’s with a startling lurch that he realizes something he’d been too tired to piece together before:

            _Soulmate_.

            He looks at the man’s face, his _eyes,_ and sure enough. One eye blue, the other maroon. His breath leaves him, and he seems to slump into the man, shaking his head.

            “No.”

            “Yes,” Dr. Lecter replies. He doesn’t seem perturbed; if anything, there is awe on his face, in his gaze. He doesn’t seem to mind holding Will up against him, and he tightens his hold on his waist to better support him, lifting one hand up to glide against his cheek.

            “It was just…it was just one _look_ ,” Will protests. At his touch, he can’t help but lean into it, digging his fingers into the material of the man’s sweater like he can rip it in two.

            “That’s all it takes. You would know that, I think,” he says, and his fingertips slide into the curls of his hair, caressing them. “Dr. Graham, a common topic of conversation among psychiatric circles for your consulting with the FBI on soulmate dynamics and psychology of soulmate behavior.”

            “You looked me up?” There is a sensation of something thrilling at that, as well as a sliver of guilt. He’d looked up Dr. Hannibal Lecter, too. Just in case.

            “We met eyes, and in case I didn’t find you today, I needed to be able to contact you somehow.”

            Silence, save the two of them and the air that smells like rain and fresh earth. Will thinks to rage, to scream, but it’s tempered by the hand that lifts just enough to glide across his back, like he wants to trace over every aspect of his skin. Will desperately wants him to continue doing that, to not stop. If he rages and screams, it’s more than likely he’d stop.

            “This isn’t happening,” Will murmurs, but that’s not quite what he means. His stance straightens so that he’s eye-level with Hannibal, chest-to-chest, almost nose-to-nose. “Are they…are mine…?”

            “One eye blue, the other maroon,” Hannibal assures him gently. Will can taste Hannibal’s pleasure at that in the back of his throat. “I’ve not endured a phenomenon like this.”

            “Neither have I.”

            He thinks that he should break apart from him, pull away so that they can breathe in something other than the instinct to consume, to touch. Enough studies taught him that it was certainly possible to resist the initial connections, that it was not all-consuming.

            He is ready to tell those studies to fuck off because there’s no way he’s strong enough not to touch.

            “I’m sorry,” he says, and Hannibal tilts his head.

            “Why?”

            “I’m…I met your eyes, and…”

            “Are you afraid, Dr. Graham?” Hannibal asks, and Will’s breath catches. He glares, stiffens in his embrace.

            “No.”

            “You are,” he realizes, and something on his face is kind, non-piteous as he slides his hand to the back of Will’s neck, leaning forward to press his forehead to Will’s. “If it’s any consolation, I am, too.”

            Will feels it, just as uncertain as his own fears, his own misgivings. Neither one of them, he thinks, are the sort that enjoys feeling so out of control. It’s a heady sort of sensation, though, that one isn’t strong enough for their skin and its demands.

            “Did it wake you from your sleep, too?” Will asks.

            A quiet hum of assent, a nod. Hannibal closes his eyes, and Will basks in the close proximity of his skin, the heat of his palm against the back of his neck.

            “I knew not where I was going, only that I had to get there,” he says quietly. His lips brush against Will’s as he speaks, and it makes his damn knees weak.

            “Now that you’re here?” Will wonders. A dangerous question, given the desires within his own veins –something naughty, something verging on possessive.

            They were complete strangers, for fuck’s sake. He shouldn’t be feeling this, _thinking_ this; he is, though.

            “I’m overcome with a genuine desire to touch, Dr. Graham,” he replies, and _fuck_ –hearing his own desires validated by the person that’s consuming him does odd things to Will’s knees, makes him pull their bodies flush against one another.

            “That’s…normal,” he says raggedly.

            “Is it?”

            “Yes.” He wets his lips, keeps his eyes shut tight. Without sight, his tactile sense is heightened, makes everything sensitive, wonderful. “It’s…an inconvenience, I’m told.”

            “I don’t feel inconvenienced.”

            “Oh, good.”

            Silence again, save for their quiet breaths, the sound of water burbling underneath the bridge they stand on. Will thinks maybe to invite him to his hotel where they can maybe talk, maybe work through what’s just happened because years of his work and studies have taught him that it’s not as easy as it feels right in this moment –he doesn’t want to sound crass, though. He doesn’t want to imply anything.

            He really, honestly just wants to touch.

            “My house is nearby,” Hannibal says suddenly, voice breaking the churning thoughts in Will’s head. He can’t bring voice to them, can’t share them, but Hannibal seems to know anyway. “If you woke as I did, I can assume you’re hungry.”

            “I’m hungry,” Will agrees, and it’s not about food.

            “It will give us a private space to discuss this in further detail too,” Hannibal adds.

            Will manages to pry himself out from around Hannibal, and he also manages a nod, although a curt one. The space pains him, something inside urging him to close the distance, to not let go now that he’d found something beautiful, something he wanted to _touch_ , and –

            -Hannibal grasps his hand, stilling the racing thoughts. His smile is polite, congenial, and Will decides to follow him, not just because of the questions they’ll need to answer but because he’s smart enough to know when he’s not fully in control of himself.

            “That is the same shirt as yesterday,” Hannibal says, and _God_ , he almost sounds affectionate pointing that out.

            “…I was in a rush,” Will replies. He’d grabbed the first thing he could find, and when Hannibal leads him off of the bridge, he realizes that the collar of his undershirt is riding high up on his neck, and yes, he’d most certainly put it on backwards in the dark.

            He takes some small comfort in the fact that at least Hannibal Lecter’s hair looked mussed, like he’d forgotten to comb it in his haste to leave his home. Still managed to get a button-up on underneath his sweater. Bastard.

            It isn’t far –closer than Will’s hotel, at least. They walk side by side, hands clasped, silent. Shoulders brush together occasionally, and although the first time he figured it was an accident, by the tenth time Will knows they’re both doing it on purpose. It’s the chemicals, he tells himself. The chemicals are feeling pretty damn good, in truth.

            It’s a lovely Tudor style home, and he’s deposited to a cushioned, wrought-iron metal barstool while Hannibal begins making breakfast, ignoring his offers to help cook.

            “…I looked you up too,” Will says, watching him break eggs in a glass bowl. His barstool sits just close enough that whenever Hannibal passes by him, the side of his slacks brushes against Will’s pantleg. Every time he walks back, his fingers brush against his arm resting on the counter, making small spirals of sensations spread along his skin. A ripple effect, and he feels much like he does when drunk, a disconnect between reality and the pleasure he’s floating in.

            “What did you find?”

            “A psychiatric practice, very well-maintained clientele. A socialite, too.”

            “What gives you that impression?” A small, self-satisfied smile. Will sees the flash of a canine, finds it endearing that it’s a little sharper than most.

            He mulls over just how a sharp canine could be endearing, but he puts that thought on the back burner. Anything about your soulmate is supposedly endearing, and just thinking like that makes his stomach churn –he’s not sure yet if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

            “There were a few articles about you showing up to a play or an opera,” he says, watching elegant fingers and knowing hands as they handle ginger over a cutting board. “No one just gets mentioned as being at a place like that unless they’re rich, important, or some kind of socialite.”

            “Or?”

            “Sometimes and,” Will allows. “Sometimes a bit of all three.”

            “Would you presume that it’s a bit of all three now?” Hannibal glances at him, and Will is distracted by his mismatched eyes, how warming it is to see his own eye pigment and know that it’s _his_ , _his_ and no one else’s. It’s possessive of him, and Will isn’t normally the possessive type –previous lovers abound could attest to his distinct lack of attachment.

            “Definitely important,” he murmurs, and he looks down to his French pressed coffee so that he doesn’t have to witness Hannibal seeing his ears turn pink. He’s not a sentimental sort like that, to say shit anything close to that.

            “Thank you.”

            There’s relief in his voice, and Will looks up from the rich color of the coffee, black as requested, focusing on the curl of his lips as he folds ginger into a skillet with a few other herbs and spices.

            “Thank you?” he asks, confused.

            “I know of you, Dr. Graham.”

            “Please, just…Will.” A pause as he laughs, taking a sip of coffee so that he has something to do with his hands. “I think after…this, you have every right to just call me Will.”

            “Thank you, Will,” Hannibal says, and he pauses in his mincing to fix Will with an honest expression. “As I said, I looked you up because we met eyes. I saw your panic, your…distaste. Your genuine fear. I normally am not so worried with my eye contact that I feel the need to find the person later, but your expression alone was enough that I was mildly concerned for you.”

            Will wants to correct that he wasn’t afraid when he realized just what he’d done outside of that coffee shop, but the urge to lie just doesn’t exist at a time like this. The urge to touch does, though. His fingers twitch, and if he reaches he could just touch his elbow, a mere grazing of fingers but _dammit_ if it wouldn’t feel good, he thinks.

            Will stubbornly resists.

            “You are prolific on studies of soulmates, but within those studies I noticed time and time again that you emphasized their existence not being any different than others, their social standing something constructed because of us deeming their connections more important than connections to anything else. ‘We as a society have decided to place utmost importance on a simple chemical connection when in reality it teaches us to not make more than the basest amount of efforts in maintaining friends and acquaintances. Soulmates have the capacity to make one lazy in their day to day interactions.’”

            “…I did say that,” Will agrees.

            “I felt quite confidant in not being your soulmate after that, seeing as how my thought on the matter is that their connection is of vast importance to how we make connections with others. I read extensively about the conjectures as to why someone of your skills and knowledge would avoid eyes after seeing the wonderful things that it could be.”

            “I’m sorry,” he echoes from earlier.

            He glances to Hannibal’s eyes, double checking. Still mismatched.

            “Don’t be. As I’m allowed my romantic nature, you too are allowed to be anything but.”

            They take breakfast out on a patio that shows the hesitantly rising sun. The overhang kept the table and chairs from getting wet, and Will breathes in the crisp air of something just on the horizon, beckoning. When Hannibal places his chair on the same side of the frosted glass table so that their arms occasionally brush against one another, Will doesn’t complain. He’s more relieved, he muses, since he wasn’t the one that had to make a show of needing a consistent physical presence. No one actually _enjoys_ being needy.

            “This doesn’t have to change things for you,” Will tries to comfort him.

            “Is that your way of saying you don’t wish for things to change?” Hannibal asks. He uses chopsticks to place delicate folds of sashimi on his tongue, and Will watches for far longer than he should.

            “No, I…it’s more to…comfort you,” he replies lamely. He clears his throat, forces himself to look at a quaint backyard with Japanese maples, a koi pond and stone benches near a well-manicured bush. It’s a good bush, he decides. This was the kind of well-established guy that made domestic living look effortless and even fun.

            “To comfort me? Are you selling yourself short, Dr. Graham?”

            “More warning you that I’m not really the type that’s good at this sort of thing, even without a soulmate connection,” he explains awkwardly. He fumbles with the chopsticks, gets them set right in his hands, and picks at the fish among the ginger. “You can ask my exes; it’s abysmal.”

            “Perhaps they didn’t understand you,” Hannibal says evenly. He sets his chopsticks down, glides the back of his fingers along Will’s bare arm. Will freezes, tracking the motion with rapt attention, food only half-chewed in his mouth. He takes a few more bites, swallows heavily, and leans back in his chair, mouth decidedly dry.

            _I want to touch you_.

            “I wasn’t really that good at helping them understand.”

            “Therefore, you see fit to build walls where your subconscious wanted to place doorways.”

            Will glances to his face, ready to protest, but it dies in his throat at the expression of utmost interest in Hannibal’s eyes. It’s not the look of someone that is merely entertaining what’s happened to them out of obligation –it’s someone that is genuinely _curious_.

            “…Do you want this?” he asks rather than argue. He’s stunned at the thought that someone would run willingly to such a forceful initial connection.

            “I am open to it, at the very least.” Hannibal tilts his head, and something flickers across his face, something too quick to catch. “That means nothing, though, if you’re not.”

            “I help hunt down serial killers for the FBI.” The words burst from his mouth, unbidden. When Hannibal says nothing to that, he continues, “I keep odd hours, I don’t sleep well at night, I don’t have family to introduce you to, my cooking is nowhere as fastidious and detailed as this, and I’ll have you know I didn’t go to the hotel room to change my shirt yesterday before going back in to the bureau –I once stood in the same room as the Vice President with a soup stain on the hem of my shirt without realizing it. When I realized it, I didn’t really care.

            “I don’t care much about people, and if you’ve looked me up then you know about my empathy disorder, and you know I once punched Dr. Frederick Chilton in the face because he kept pestering me for an in-depth analysis on my person and he caught me on a bad day after I’d had drinks with the few friends I have. I don’t like eyes, I don’t care much for cats, and sometimes I get so lost in my head I come back and have to piece together who I am.”

            Hannibal listens, expression impassive.

            “I have fourteen dogs at my house in Wolf Trap, Virginia,” he continues ruthlessly, and he drums his fingers on the table to expel the nervous energy just under the surface of his blunt and unfiltered confessions. “I don’t like soulmates because people try and force something that may or may not work, all for the sake of a connection that society told them spans time and the universe or whatever. I think it’s a load of shit.

            “Even then, I’m just not good at connections. You’re a socialite, you’ve a presence in the art community, the psychiatric community and, _hell_ , you’ve even got connections to the government, and I’d hate to be the reason you have a rough time with that, just because there’s something about us that our subconscious saw before we did.

            “But really, above all, I’m just not the kind of person that’d be good at that, I think. So it’s not so much whether I want to or not, it’s that from what I’ve seen on the internet and what I’m seeing here, I’d be just about as useful to you as a tick on a dog’s ass.”

            He’s not looking at Hannibal anymore; instead, he’s staring out at the lovely stone wall that surrounds the backyard, free of kudzu and ivy. So lost is he in the many shades of grey in the rock that when Hannibal’s voice starts, just at the shell of his ear, he jumps a little.

            “You have a distinct southern accent when you’re agitated,” he says, breath warm and honeyed in his ear. “I find it oddly attractive.”

            Will finds himself holding very, very still.

            “And,” Hannibal continues, tone low and even, “you gave me a dramatic resume, complete with your own estimation of what you think of yourself; at the very least in regards to what you think ties you to people –usefulness. Do you suppose people only create friendships or relationships with you based off of what is it about you that makes you useful?”

            Will wants to answer ‘yes’, but he knows the right answer is a rather defensive ‘no’. He settles for looking down at his plate, a small and elegant display of food for no other reason than the simple fact that Hannibal wanted to, and he’d seemed to enjoy doing it, too.

            “You’re a person of aesthetics, and I’m…distinctly not that,” he manages.

            “Neither are you a tool, tolerated only for the work you can do. You think like that, though. I can see that.”

            “Can you?” Will asks, mild sarcasm tinging his words.

            “Yes.” Hannibal doesn’t rise to the bait, and he shifts just close enough that lips brush against Will’s ear as he makes sure that every aspect of Will Graham is distinctly aware of and wanting every single aspect of him. “There is nothing wrong with art for art’s sake.”

            “Art for art’s sake?”

            “You can enjoy something without it representing something of symbolism or usefulness to you. Most people searching for a domestic partner do not choose them because they fulfil a demand, but simply because they enjoy being within the same general area as that person.”

            “We connect due to a need. People are useful because we tend to move in packs, forming organized locations around one another due to the skillsets of the people within an area,” Will replies. He refuses to admit to himself just how lovely it feels to have Hannibal pressed so close, mouth close enough that if he turned his head, he’d kiss it.

            “Yes, but we don’t choose down a long line of criteria as though it is a job. We enjoy people simply because they are enjoyable, no matter if their hands build homes or their minds solve puzzles.”

            “You’re awfully close to sounding like you think you’d enjoy my presence,” Will says dryly.

            “I can enjoy looking without wondering what use I can gain from your presence. Just looking would be enough.”

            “Would it?” Will asks dubiously. He can feel it, though, knows the answer before it’s said. He knows it before Hannibal even grabs him gently by the chin and turns his head so that he can kiss him, lips soft and searching. It isn’t the same as on the bridge, when an unknown urge propelled him, _wanting_. It’s gentler, and he’s sighing into it like it’s some sort of cheesy romantic comedy because there’s just something so _right_ about how Hannibal’s hand slides along his jaw to tangle in the hair at the back of his neck, like he knows that it’s a weakness of Will’s, like he knows it just makes him feel like he’s melting into a puddle.

            Hannibal pulls away, just enough to speak. “I suppose just looking wouldn’t be enough. Not on a day like today, at least.” His voice sounds strained, mildly pained at the close proximity. Through the connection, he feels Hannibal’s desire pooling in his stomach, making his hands want to reach out and grab. Will slides his hands along his chest, cashmere sweater soft against his calloused palms. He’s glad he didn’t rip it earlier.

            “That fades,” Will tries to reassure him. His voice is pitched, hoarse.

            “I’m not quite sure that I want it to.”

            Well, there’s that. Will curls his bottom lip into his mouth, glides his tongue along it to taste. More than a want, he realizes. A need. He’s not sure how to articulate that, not without another rousing round of confessional, one psychiatrist to another. Maybe a little more kissing. Maybe just a little more touching.

            “Any other day though, after the strength of the chemical compounds fade to something more manageable, just looking is something I believe I could do,” Hannibal says when Will doesn’t speak. Can’t speak.

            “…Yeah?” Inelegant, blunt. Beverly at the BAU would have almost fallen over laughing at him.

            “In reality, I’d like to have dinner with you, at the very least.”

            “We’re having breakfast.”

            “We moved to a private location so that we weren’t overcome with the desire to remove our clothes in a public park,” Hannibal corrects him. Will can’t argue that, no matter how much he wants to –Hannibal wasn’t _wrong_ , after all. “As much as I enjoy Mukozuke, this was a spontaneous act in order to ease the onslaught of endorphins our systems received.”

            “You think once those endorphins ease, you’re going to want to have dinner with me?”

            “That stems from a genuine curiosity, not from chemical compounds.”

            Will knows he’s telling the truth about that –he’d seen it, after all. Hannibal’s hand is still tangled in his hair, and he peeks up at him, an odd sort of grimace that he can’t quite fix into a smile. It’s surreal. The entire thing is surreal, and he’s pretty sure he’s one drink away from waking up in a ditch with no memory of the encounter –

            -Then why worry? If this is really just a random, colorful dream of the drunken, what’s the harm?

            “…A date,” Will finds himself saying. “Not just dinner.”

            “It doesn’t have to be a date.”

            “It does, otherwise it’s not worth it. If we’re going to give this a try, we’re going to do it right,” he says. “All in or not at all, right?”

            Hannibal kisses him again, and Will is just pleased enough with the way he’s wrapped his mind around the whole thing to let him. That, and it was either Hannibal kiss _him_ , or _he_ was going to kiss Hannibal.

            They finish their breakfast –he’d have to research what the hell _Mukozuke_ was –and Hannibal, naturally, is ambidextrous enough to use his left hand rather than his right, to better keep a hold on Will’s hand.

-

            He realizes, of course, that it wasn’t a drunken hallucination where he woke up in a ditch the next morning with no credit cards in his wallet. The next morning his eyes are still mismatched, and four days later he’s on a date with Hannibal Lecter, top recommended psychiatrist of Baltimore area and an avid fan of the opera.

            He said one date, but after that one there was another. Then another. Then another.

            Quite frankly, he decides to stop counting them because at this point he’s too damn old to count dates like he’s waiting for one where they become something more official.

            Instead, he decides to try the whole ‘art for art’s sake’ and just sits back to enjoy the ride.


	2. Deadly Encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will Graham had just finished dragging the body of Randall Tier up a small hill to an abandoned well when he saw another gentleman just across the way doing something much the same.
> 
> “Well, one of us is going to have to change,” Will said dryly.

Chapter 2:            

            Will Graham had just finished dragging the body of Randall Tier up a small hill to an abandoned well when he saw another gentleman just across the way doing something much the same.

            There was a moment, in seeing him, that Will considered immediately pulling out his pistol and ending him. He wasn’t much of a trigger-happy sort of man, though; keeping his wits about him –so to speak –in a stressful situation was the only reason he was currently alive. Will glanced to the body at his feet, wrapped with utmost care and devoid of any distinguishing features or evidence, then to the man just on the other side of the well.

            The man was watching him, too.

            “Well, one of us is going to have to change,” Will said dryly.

            The man tilted his head, as if to better catch his words and turn them about. Likely he was studying Will just as cautiously as Will was studying him, taking in what little details he could find. Unlike Will, dressed comfortably in flannel and jeans that would later be burned, he was dressed in something reusable, a plastic suit fitted over a sensible quarter-zip sweater and slacks.

            Not his first offense, then.

            “I’d apologize, but these things happen,” the man said. He had a cool clipped sort of voice, accented lightly with something European and a dash of sophistication. A doctor? A professor?

            “They do,” Will readily agreed.

            The hill was quiet as the two continued to scrutinize one another, waiting. A cool breeze teased the hair at the nape of Will’s neck, reminded him that despite the weather he had worked up a sweat in killing Randall. His shirt clung to his back, the material cold against his clammy skin. He wondered if the man across from him had matching eyes, or if they’d be the mismatch pair of someone that had found their other half.

            “Is this where we both explain the reason why we believe that we deserve this location as a place in which to place our respective bodies?” the man wondered.

            “Maybe rock, paper, scissors?”

            “I thought the view here would be lovely for his final resting place,” he said as if Will hadn’t spoken, and he turned his head to look out over the forest. His body stayed firmly squared towards Will. “It’s peaceful, here.”

            Will looked out over the rolling hills, the lush green hardwoods that rose to grand heights. The forest in Wolf Trap, Virginia, was the product of both hundreds of years of growth versus months of brand new life bursting from the rich soil. Will knew the paths like the back of his hand, the animal trails that led him to the best of places to fish. Each living thing within it was a comfort to him, each bed of moss and each field of flowers remarkable.

            This man…was an interloper.

            “I’d say let’s keep it peaceful here,” Will suggested curtly.

            “There’s no need for more death,” the man agreed.

            “Then I’ll take the well, and you take your body elsewhere.”

            “I need the well, though,” the man protested, although it was a polite sort of protest. They eyed one another cautiously, and the man’s smile was even amiable. The light made it difficult to tell the color of his eyes.

            “Yeah, well,” Will grunted, and he hefted Randall Tier up just enough to lean him against the crumbling stones of the well. It brought him close enough to the man to be able to note the subtle colors in the argyle pattern underneath the plastic suit as well as the fitted booties over his shoes. Matching eyes. “I get the feeling you’re the type that kills often enough that you’ll be able to find another well in no time. No need to waste your talents here.”

            The man continued to stare as Will lifted Randall and dumped him end over end, the darkness of the dry well swallowing him whole before a few seconds later, there was a muted _thump_. Satisfied, Will rocked back on his heels and wiped his brow, jaw set stubbornly.

            “Do you feel good about being able to make such a conjecture?” the man asked.

            “Satisfaction isn’t _always_ a good thing; sometimes just means you accomplished what you set out to do.”

            “Then you’re satisfied,” he clarified.

            “To a degree. There’s still the matter of you taking that body to another well.”

            “Why are you so concerned about there not being two bodies in this well? Are you particularly territorial of it?” The wariness from before seemed to soften; his tone of voice was somehow amused, teasing.

            “I’m particularly concerned with no one finding a body at this well. Not one, and sure as hell not two.” Will ground his teeth and planted his hands on his hips. Just an inch behind the right hand, the holster to his pistol lay in case he stumbled across snakes or wild hogs.

            Or other killers.

            “You’re not concerned that I’ll call this in?” the man asked, and his smile left deep grooves in his cheeks. It made the hollows of his eyes far more sunken, far more dangerous. The amiable gentleman from Europe was gone for the briefest moments, and despite everything in Will’s gut begging him to rip the pistol from its holster and dump _three_ bodies in the god-forsaken well, he didn’t.

            He had his curiosity to slake, after all.

            “That suit tells me you’ve thought this through,” Will noted, and he swept his gaze along the man once more. No other inch of him moved, save for the occasional tilt or turn of his head. It was animalistic, his need to catch the sounds falling from Will’s mouth. “The calmness of your hand, your stance, and your voice says this is a normal affair for you. Your eyes are matching, meaning this was no soulmate murder that can be explained away by a chemical change and some claim to temporary insanity. This was well thought out. Your willingness to speak with me rather than simply fall to fight or flight instincts shows an analytical mind, no doubt mimicking my lack of using the firearm at my side.”

            “I’m being polite.”

            “Nothing wrong with politeness, but I know you noticed my gun. You’re responding to my lack of violence with a lack of violence of your own, either until you have the opportunity or until you have a better understanding of your situation. That rules out most disorders or psychotic breaks. You can reason.”

            “Are you psychoanalyzing me?” The man was amused.

            “A bit.”

            “You’re not entirely wrong,” he assured Will. “Please, do go on.”

            Given that he still hadn’t moved, Will folded his arms across his chest and got comfortable. “You specifically chose this place, the top of a steep hill, and there is more than just a body in that bag behind you. I heard tools and equipment rattling around. You’re not going to just toss a body here, you’re going to do something with it.”

            “Perhaps I mean to bury it deeper?”

            “Hardly. As of right now, there are three on-going investigations regarding serial killers within a seventy-five-mile radius and dozens of cold cases.”

            “Oh?” The man showed only the barest of surprise.

            “Only one of those sets up elaborate displays in shocking or dramatic locations that are ironic only to the victim.”

            Quiet crept along the wind that stirred between them. Just at the tip of his tongue, Will tasted the bitter scent of maple leaves and wet acorns from the breeze, faintly pungent. The man before him tilted his head once more, and it was a quick, predatory jerk. Will had him, there. He saw it in his eyes, how they hardened to chips of garnet in the sunlight. Matching eyes. No soulmate.

            “Am I speaking to the illustrious Will Graham that was just recruited to aid in a cold case with the hard-working agents of the F-B-I?”

            Will bared his teeth. “Not so cold anymore, I think. Not since a week ago I got a special visit from the director of the BAU.”

            “I’m curious as to what you’ll do next, Special Agent Graham,” the Chesapeake Ripper said kindly. “We are both here on interesting circumstances, after all.”

            Special circumstances, after all. Will thought about the pistol, then rejected the idea. Gunshots this time of year weren’t entirely surprising, although the time of day could be suspicious. Will thought once more of leaving three bodies in the well.

            He didn’t reach for the pistol.

            “I’m not here to have a dick measuring contest between the FBI and the alleged Chesapeake Ripper,” Will said at last. He could still taste the hint of acorns on his tongue. “I’m just saying, if the Chesapeake Ripper set up a display at this well, sooner or later there will be something that leads the FBI here. Where I just dumped a body.”

            “You’ve put yourself in an interesting predicament then,” the Chesapeake Ripper observed.

            “No, it means you’re going to plant that body somewhere else.” Will gestured to the body once, then jabbed a little harder for emphasis. “Don’t care where else, as long as it’s not here.”

            He wasn’t sure what to think of the way the Chesapeake Ripper stared at him after that, equal parts amusement and something borderline murderous. His palms were hot, and he thought of the body sitting at the bottom of the well, how everything had gone so wrong so fast. It wasn’t his fault.

            _It wasn’t his fault_.

            “You know, I’ve read stories about the special agent that was recruited for the Chesapeake Ripper’s case,” the man said, and his expression softened. “How he helps the FBI find monsters because he is one.”

            Will’s confidence in his ability to draw his pistol quickly faltered, if but a little. He swallowed, hard, and resented how his hands shook. “No, it’s because he thinks like one.”

            “One could argue that what we think, we say. What we say, we do. What we do defines who we are.”

            “Now who’s psychoanalyzing who,” Will muttered, only he wasn’t so congenial as the Chesapeake Ripper had been. He felt his identity like a brand, something he could normally set aside when he stepped into the forest, even as he’d done it to hide the body of a man he’d murdered.

            “I’m curious about the story that led a person with hyper-empathy disorder to take the life of what looked to be a young adult male?”

            “What is this, quid pro-quo?”

            “I did freely allow your psychoanalysis,” the Chesapeake Ripper reminded him. As a gesture of peace, he even rocked back onto his heels and tucked his hands into his pockets.

            With a stance like that, how could Will say no?

            “He was another serial killer,” Will admitted, “that decided to make me his target. He failed.”

            “You didn’t think to call your boss at the FBI?”

            At that, Will faltered and looked to the well, then back to the man across from him that seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say. Will cleared his throat, then ground his teeth together.

            “Is this your first time taking a life?” the man asked when he didn’t –couldn’t –speak.

            “No.”

            “Your second?”

            “…No.”

            The man tilted his head, his smile more of a smirk this time. “Are you creating a pattern, Special Agent Graham?”

            “All three of them have been in self-defense,” Will protested, and his dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He felt oddly exposed. “I just…don’t want there to be a pattern. Two isn’t a pattern, but three is.”

            “I’d imagine with your neurosis, the pleasant staff of the FBI ensure constant psychological evaluations as the nosy and unpleasant poke about with a blunt instrument, clumsy and ignorant.”

            Bluntly put, and yet...

Will blinked once, hard, then shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose as they slid down. “Yes.”

            “When one has to live in a head such as yours, the last thing you’d wish to endure is someone else seeing just how ugly the things inside of you are.”

            “Hence why I suggest that a high-publicity figure such as yourself should find somewhere else to stash your body,” Will replied, and he couldn’t help a humorless laugh. “Now you’re catching on.”

            “You trust that I won’t make a phone call to Agent Jack Crawford? I know he is the head of the case on the Chesapeake Ripper.” His smile that time was delightfully sadistic. “He won’t stop until he has the head of such a notorious serial killer on his desk.”

            “I have enough of your description that there will be a man-hunt shortly after my own arrest, I assure you.”

            “I could simply frame you for all of my kills,” the Chesapeake Ripper pointed out.

            “And give me the credit for your art?”

            The Chesapeake Ripper preened. “Then even you, disgusted by your own murder as you seem to be, can admit the artistic style of my work and how this well would be a lovely location for it?”

            “I’m not disgusted,” Will snapped, “I put that animal down like the dog he thought he was.”

            Silence between them once more. The way the Chesapeake Ripper regarded him made something just underneath the thin membrane of his skin shift, and he wondered how quick he’d be to his gun, should the man lunge.

            Not as quick as he’d like, that was for damn sure.

            “May I sit down here with you?” the Chesapeake Ripper asked, and that wasn’t at all what Will was expecting.

            “Why?”

            “I have quite the curiosity about you, Special Agent Graham, and I think you have something much the same about me.”

            “I don’t.”

            The Chesapeake Ripper’s smile was serrated. “You will.”

            “You think this means I’ll just leave the case on you?” Will asked hotly. “I ask you enough questions, and I tell Jack that I just can’t help him on this?”

            “On the contrary, I thought to have a pleasant chat. I set this body aside awhile longer, and the two of us have an adult conversation.”

            “This won’t endear me to you,” Will warned him.

            “Heaven forbid we become friends,” the Chesapeake Ripper solemnly agreed.

            He wasn’t an impatient man. He gave Will the time to mull over his words, his heart pounding as something just out of reach screamed for him to just _shoot the bastard already_. It couldn’t control his limbs, though, no matter how it tried. It was things like this that made Will wish he’d just stayed away when Jack came skulking around, made him think about Alana Bloom begging him to just tell Jack to fuck off. Maybe if he hadn’t gotten involved with this shit, a suspect to a huge case wouldn’t have taken an interest in him.

            Maybe if they hadn’t taken an interest in him, they wouldn’t be dead.

            Will sat down on a large rock just beside the well. He stared out over the lush, green hillside in profile to the Chesapeake Ripper –known in the BAU as ‘Jack’s Magnum Opus’ –and gave him a clear view of Will’s pistol, still tucked safely away in its holster.

            After Will was settled, the Chesapeake Ripper crossed the small distance and sat down beside him.

            The pistol was tucked between them.

            “Do you often find your talents grotesque but useful?” the Chesapeake Ripper asked.

            “I am capable of hurting people whether they’re good or bad,” Will replied heavily. “I choose to only hurt bad people.”

            “You have such an acute understanding of them, therefore you know why they must die. Their thoughts are your thoughts. You see the monsters behind their skin.”

            “I know how rotten they are down to their marrow. How twisted. How hurt.”

            “It’s a burden to you.”

            “Is your apathy your burden?” Will retorted. “They are beneath you, so it’s not murder? You can’t be bothered to care?”

            “I have feelings. The people that die by my hand aren’t entirely deserving of life –why should I bother with caring for their death?”

            “Next you’re going to tell me that you’re god,” Will scoffed.

            “Didn’t you feel like god when you killed that young man?”

            A little bit. Enough that he could understand why there was absolutely no reason, way, shape, or form that Jack Crawford could find out about what’d happened. He swallowed heavily and wondered which of them would be faster to his pistol now.

            “God is amazing,” the Chesapeake Ripper murmured. “Humans enjoy depicting him as a benevolent caretaker and loving father, but he is nature. God is as much a balance as the seasons are; in one hand he holds the miracles of birth, and in the other hand he created S.I.D.S. There is nothing kind nor cruel in his acts.”

            “What would you call it, then?”

            The Chesapeake Ripper turned to him and stared into his eyes with a smile. “Power.”

            Will Graham was ten steps away from him with his gun drawn before he could quite get a breath in, before he could quite realize what he was doing. His other arm swung up in order to clasp the pistol properly, grip it tight with both hands because that was far more stable than the teacup approach.

            The Chesapeake Ripper hadn’t moved an inch.

            “You have an aversion to eyes,” he noted gravely.

            “Get that fucking body and get out of here,” Will said shakily. He’d seen his eyes.

            _He’d seen his fucking eyes_.

            “Do you avoid everyone’s eyes?” Rather than laugh, the Chesapeake Ripper stood with care, probably more than aware of the tightrope that he walked in that moment. Will’s finger was on the trigger and squeezing ever-so-slightly.

            “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

            “Are you going to kill me now, Special Agent Graham?”

            “Leave and I won’t have to.”

            It was like before, only this time it was Will on the incline and the Chesapeake Ripper at the top by the well, staring impassively. His hands were shaking, and he wondered what Beverly would say should she find his body carved up and stretched out on a canvas for her to find later. Kill or be killed was how the world went whether or not there were gods or balance or nature or anything of the like.

            And Will was very, _very_ good at killing bad people.

            “I’m going to leave,” the Chesapeake Ripper decided.

            “Good idea.”

            “I hope to see you in the near future, but I understand if the sentiment isn’t shared. I can only imagine someone with the turn of mind like yours would be wary of garnering a chemical connection to another human being.”

            “If I ever see you again, I’ll have to kill you,” Will replied. “You know that, right?”

            “We’ll see.”

            The Chesapeake Ripper departed from the hill. Will stayed back, listening to the sounds of twigs snapping, leaves crunching, and wind rustling against synthetic material until it faded into the distance, swallowed up by the density of the forest.

            It was quite some time after until he finally made his own trek home. He’d have liked to have said that he left Randall Tier up on that hill with the body in the well, but in reality, Will figured he’d never quite leave him –like the residue on the counter that just wouldn’t quite wipe clean.

            He lay in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling. He thought of garnets in the sunlight, bright and eerily calm as they watched him hold a gun. Matching eyes.

            _Fuck_.

            He slept, and he dreamt of digging into the soft earth outside, tilling the soil until he found raw crystals and stones, garnets in the sunlight. The air smelled like rotting flesh. It smelled like Randall Tier.

-

            It was a knock at the door that woke him, but it was the pushing, tugging feeling in his chest that forced him to unlock it. Something was whispering, urging, and when arms came close to wrap around him, he didn’t mind so much.

            Was he dreaming?

            It didn’t feel like a dream. His skin flushed, and there was a sense of everything being just _right_ as hands glided along his back, sweaty and hot from bad dreams.

            A mouth was on his, and all thought was lost entirely, something urging him to _touch_ and how could he question such a reasonable statement as that? To touch something that wanted to be touched, arching under his curious and wanting hands.

            Will found the bed, and the frame creaked and smacked the wall. They fell back onto it, and he found himself staring up into eyes too dark to clearly see.

            “Your bed is in your living room,” Hannibal huffed, and his shirt was removed deftly, tossed somewhere else into the darkness where the dogs would likely lay on it and get hair everywhere.

            “Shut up,” Will groused, and his skin hummed as lips met his chest with purpose, mindful of what made him tangle his fingers through silvered hair.

            Something inside of him was pulling, pulling. It felt _right,_ and it stole his breath from him, left him digging his fingers into his sheets, urging.

            His heart beat, hard, and there was the dizzying sensation where he couldn’t have been sure if the heart pressed just against his skin was beating in perfect measure with him, too.

-

            “Your front window is broken,” Hannibal Lecter said conversationally. He lay on his side just across from Will, a hand pressed to Will’s bare hip.

            “Randall Tier jumped through it when he attacked me,” Will replied.

            Hannibal eyed it critically. “The repair job will do for now, but it needs properly fixed before it snows.”

            “Why would you care?” Will wondered.

            Hannibal’s hand flexed against his hip, tight then painfully relaxed. Will’s skin hummed at the touch, and the feeling of everything being just _right_.

            “Should I not be, given what we’re feeling right now?”

            “I have to kill you, you know.”

            Somehow, it didn’t sound as aggressive as Will wanted it to. It was almost like he’d said the punchline to a joke that had been shared many, many times.

            Fucking soulmate bond. He held his breath, but when Hannibal put lips to his neck, he couldn’t quite keep it in.

            “Do you suppose that I haven’t also entertained the notion?”

            It sounded wicked against his neck.

            “I’d say it was your first thought, and many after. You could still be considering it and trying to distract me with this.”

            “You’d feel it, though,” Hannibal pointed out.

            “I’d feel it,” Will agreed after a beat.

            “And what is it you feel, Special Agent Graham?”

            “I feel…”

            But that was the trouble, wasn’t it? Will Graham _felt_ , and at the moment it was hard to describe the need, something that urged and whispered wicked things in his ear and made him wrap a leg around a psychopath’s calf.

            He felt good, though. Really good, all things considered. He hadn’t even thought about Randall Tier’s corpse since he first woke up.

            “I don’t know how this will even work,” he finally said, but it wasn’t so full of conviction. Hannibal’s mouth had found his jaw.

            “We’ll think of something,” Hannibal replied, unconcerned. “One of us may kill the other at some point yet. We can’t say for certain.”

            Will didn’t feel like it, at the moment. Jack would _definitely_ lock him up if he didn’t, and yet…

            “We’ll see,” he decided. Not quite full of conviction, but it was difficult to be, at the moment.

            Some people said that soulmate connections were just chemicals, but it was difficult to feel that way at the moment, with his skin in direct contact and everything inside him urging him to remain that way for the foreseeable future.

             Thankfully, Hannibal didn’t feel obliged to move from his position any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little something that popped into my head on my day off. Enjoy!

**Author's Note:**

> This is just the general world for The Fault in My Code/Where the Wicked Walk and random pieces of it/different aspects of soulmate bonds within that world. Tbh I just wanted some nice, sweet fluff, but then I realized it'd be fun to really delve into the other parts of the world I'm building and other scenarios because why not? Sporadic with no real schedule, but something sweet to combat all of the angst and mystery I seem to enjoy writing. Art for Art's Sake, you could say.
> 
> You can connect with me on Tumblr as Elfnerdherder -come say hello!
> 
> A special thanks to my patrons: Sylarana, Duhaunt6, Mendacious Bean, Superlurk, Cecily, Evertonem, Inky-Starlight, Heather Feather, Laura G., and Dancy_85!


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